with all due apologies to William Butler Yeats

I

That is no resort for young men. The old
With new electric carts, golf clubs and bags,
—Those dying dreams of glory—cheaply sold,
In pastel shirts and slacks, designer tags,
Shoes, belts, and caps, boisterous and bold;
Their wealth and privilege, white as any flag,
Snapping in the breeze of their neglect,
Build monuments to what their age respects.

II

This bronzed man is but a vulgar thing,
His belly soft and stuffed into his pants.
He fiddles with his watch and pinkie ring
And plays at being Lord of every dance;
For people do not matter, but they sing
In chorus to his own magnificence;
And therefore he will sail the seas to go
Retire to his home at Mar-a-Lago.

III

O pundits musing of his passing fame,
Recount the many crimes he did commit.
Come to call him out by every name—
Fraud, Liar, Thief, Scoundrel, trumped-up Twit—
To lance the boil and purify with flame
The sickness at the core of all of it:
The lies we tell ourselves to sleep at night,
That only we are wholly in God’s light.

IV

Once he has left and quit this mortal coil,
His lumpen body politic at rest
Moldering next to him in toxic soil
Gouged from the earth as from his mother’s breast,
The young must stand against those who despoil
The promise of this country at its best.
Spurn the Kings and Queens of Mar-a-Lago,
the lies they live, and love, and only know.

Mike Orlock is a retired high school teacher and coach residing with his wife and best friend Liz in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.